


Speak

by Liminality (TyndallBlue)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Magical Realism, Muteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4377554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TyndallBlue/pseuds/Liminality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with a mirror, then Sherlock woke to realize he could not speak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak

**Author's Note:**

> Comments mean the world to me. Thanks for reading <3

 

 

It had started with a mirror.

 

It wasn't a particularly important mirror, just something John had found at an antique store that had reminded of his Nan.  The type of gaudy, ornate thing that had once hung in her foyer.  Without a second thought he purchased it, but began regretting his impulse buy while lugging it home in the unseasonable heat.

 

While John had expected a certain amount of protest from Sherlock, this time he was unexpectedly enthusiastic in his criticism.  Epithets were followed by 10 minutes of obscene muttering about bad luck. John laughed at him, poking at this unexpected superstition.

 

“Just don’t break it, love,” he chided, looking for a nail and hammer.  For reasons he didn’t understand, both turned out to be located in an empty coffee tin beneath the sink.  He wound up hanging the mirror above the sofa.  Pleased, he stood back to admire it as Sherlock grumbled and with a dramatic flourish of his blue robe, disappeared to his room.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next evening after work, he was wearily climbing the 17 steps to their flat when he heard the crash.  No longer tired, he ran the last 6 and threw open the door to see a shellshocked Sherlock seated on the sofa staring at the scattered bits of broken mirror and gilt frame.  Wide, verdigris eyes met his, lips slightly parted but silent.  

 

“If you hated it that much, you could have just said something,” he sighed and went to find the broom and dustpan.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock asked him if they had a shovel, so he could bury it at a crossroads. John kissed him, finding that this was always the easiest way to shut him up. As he pulled back he asked him if he could give fixing the portable aircon another go, it was broken again. The ceiling fan did nothing but vaguely stir the soggy air of the kitchen. Sherlock sighed and said something that John was sure was witty to anyone who understood it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock woke to find he could not speak, shaking John awake. His eyes were wide, and his thin, rough fingers kept touching his own throat in desperation.  John panicked at first, thinking Sherlock was choking, but calmed when he heard the whispers of harsh exhalation.  His palm felt for a fever that wasn’t here.  Sherlock denied any pain and John used a spoon and a penlight for a cursory examination of his throat.  John frowned.

“I don’t see anything wrong.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

At John’s insistence they went to a different the doctor the next day for a second opinion.  Sherlock rolled his eyes through the whole process though his body remained taut and his skin pale.  She didn’t find anything wrong either.  

 

Sherlock refused to take a cab home, and instead took off down the sidewalk without waiting for John.  Knowing an attempt to keep up would be fruitless, John started for the nearest tube station.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the time he got home, Sherlock had emptied the wastebasket of the mirror, picked the fragments of mirror from the refuse, and begun piecing it together like a puzzle on the floor. John humored him and left him to it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Sherlock learned to say again was 'I love you.'

 

At first this was simply how he pressed his lips to John's cheek, but soon it became a multitude of things. The way his body moved as he poured them tea, the soft exhalation of relief when John entered the bedroom, returning late from work.

 

John could have even sworn he saw it in the way Sherlock folded his hands in his lap as he drifted to sleep while watching telly. Not allowed to work anymore, television became an escape from books which were an escape from his life.  He resisted the instinct to sweep his eyes up forearms and ankles, and hoped his trust was not misplaced.

 

John thought it was a very Sherlock thing to try to escape escapism.

 

 

* * *

 

 

'I hate you' and 'I'm angry' were his next words. John had an easier time learning those. He could see it in the sharp white edge of Sherlock's crooked tooth when he bit his lips in frustration. The flourish of hands and a strangled sound of aggravation and slamming doors did not bother John. He sat there calmly, drank his tea, and waited for Sherlock return.

 

What always followed was, 'I'm sorry.' Sherlock sliding into the room, shy and silent.  He would kneel before John with the guiltiest of expressions, take the tea from John's hands, and set it on the floor.  John knows it will grow cold before he can finish it.

 

Apologies from Sherlock were even more complex without words. Cold fingers wrap around his, equally cold lips pressed to each palm. His hands are rough on John's wrists and forearms, and Sherlock's lips follow them there.

 

John closes eyes as the cups of his hands find his cheeks, soft sad sounds coming from his partners lips which barely kiss his temple before ghosting down the straight line of his nose and finding his lips. John remembers how Sherlock once told him that he would write poetry about John's lips if he could. John laughed and told him that he should instead write an abstract. Sherlock grinned and said that he hoped there were no other sources to back his findings.

 

John, tired of science, kissed him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

John wasn't sure of how he felt about this quieter Sherlock.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the mornings Sherlock always smelt dark, like coffee and taste of it as he kissed John goodbye. It overwhelmed the light smell of tea that John had grown up with. When Sherlock still worked, the scent was a gentle lingering remnant by the time John arose at 8, but now it drifted through the apartment, heavy and sticky with cream and sweetener.

 

Sherlock sat at the kitchen table, staring into his mug, eyes bruised and shadowed.  John pretended he didn’t know that Sherlock spent his nights with the mirror and glue that left his fingers perpetually sticky.

 

"No call?" John murmured, shuffling into the kitchen. The brunet curls swayed slightly with a no. The first attempt at footwork has been disastrous, and ended with Sherlock leaving in a humiliated flurry of coat as Sally and Anderson howled.  Sherlock refused to consult beyond emails until his voice deigned to return or they found a way for him to communicate besides illegible scrawl. Sherlock had laughed silently at first, writing that he wanted to sound like Stephen Hawking.

 

"Are you at least going into Barts?" Another no. Sherlock's hands parted from the mug, making a motion of wringing necks. John understood but found Sherlock’s feelings on Molly rally uncharitable considering her sympathy and patience. With a sigh, John moved to rummage through the pantries for breakfast. Half-awake, he accidently knocked over Sherlock's carefully constructed pyramid of iced-coffee cans that the detective seemed to have suddenly become fond.  When questioned he waved dismissively in a way that clearly communicated less tedious. Sherlock glanced back at the noise.

 

"Well, if you're not going to work, could you at least pick up while I'm gone?" John continued to make breakfast. Sherlock got up and opened the windows, cleaning the apartment of the smell of coffee.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Though work was usually tedious, he was disappointed that it was going to be even more so that day.  Some weeks ago Sara had agreed to participate in a shadowing program for a few nearby schools.  John did his best to be pleasant with the young girl following him, answered her questions with a smile that he was sure was tight.  Unfortunately she seemed to sense his impatience and had slunk from the clinic around lunch.  John took the remainder of time between patients, wondering and worrying about Sherlock’s increasing despondence, all free time spent piecing together the mirror before their hearth, day and night.  All visitors, formerly welcomed, were turned away with throw crockery and cutlery unless John intervened.  His mood had darkened further since a visit with a specialist answered no questions about his continued muteness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

John pushed open the door to their apartment and was greeted with a tinkling, bell-like sound and a familiar smell of hot pennies. Not bothering to kick off his shoes, he ran to the kitchen table, grabbing Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock jerked back with a wide-eyed inhalation.

 

Sherlock hated nothing more than being surprised. On the table were shredded bits of iced coffee cans and fragments of mirror, interspersed with Sherlock's tools. His pliers, hobby knives, tiny drills used in engineering labs that John bought him for Christmas. Little oozing scratches laced Sherlock's hands, untended.

 

"Sherlock, what the hell are you doing?" John asked, gently, surveying the glinting clutter on the table.  Among it was a multitude of half-formed animals with mirror eyes and limbs. Tin-form cranes glided across the table with the beat of the fan.

 

Sherlock cupped his hands and unfolded them, like opening a flower. Creating. John leaned down and kissed his cheek, hoping that this was just a phase. "Forget the mirror, it was just a coincidence, love." Sherlock shook his head. John made dinner. They ate in an unsteady silence among a menagerie of shining animals.

 

John cursed the mirror, and would have broken it into a thousand more pieces had Sherlock not taken the time to neatly file them into hundreds of tiny eyes and wings and limbs.  

He longed for the days of acid and entrails.

  



End file.
